


Neither Love Nor Money

by Oriole AlmaThrockmorton (inamac)



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1979-03-15
Updated: 1979-03-15
Packaged: 2017-10-11 00:55:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/106439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inamac/pseuds/Oriole%20AlmaThrockmorton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Anna Grant was a ten-credit touch..."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Neither Love Nor Money

"Anna Grant was a ten credit touch."

Avon linked his fingers behind his head and leaned back, making himself as comfortable as possible against a golden moss-covered rock. Surreptitiously he watched for Blake's reaction to the deliberately casual comment. He managed to suppress a smile as the other man choked over his drink. He continued as if nothing had happened.

"She was a prostitute. By all accounts she wasn't even particularly attractive Just another spaceport slut."

Blake carefully deposited the half empty jug on the mossy turf and turned to face his companion, focussing, not without some difficulty on the direct gaze. "And you knew her, Avon?"

"I never met her."

"No?" Blake raised a disbelieving eyebrow, but Avon refused to rise to the bait.

"No." The tone brooked no argument. "She was merely data. An anomaly on the computer personnel printouts. She'd been using false identities for so long that even the computers were having trouble keeping up with her. Stars! The processing system at Levin Spaceport was a mess. It needed three years work to sort it out, and they gave me three months."

"But three years pay?"

The insight slipped past Avon's guard and drew forth a quick smile. "Yes. Although I wonder whether it was worth it. Grant wanted me to pay with my life."

"Del Grant? Her brother?"

Avon took a stick and poked at the fire. Sparks flew.

"Do you want to hear this story or not, Blake?"

The other man retrieved the stone jug and tipped it to his lips. "Oh I want to hear it. I'm just wondering why you've decided to tell me now."  
"Because if you drink much more of that stuff you won't remember anything by morning."

"If there is a morning on this hell-hole of a planet. Come on, have some yourself. It's good."

"It's probably poisonous. You must be the most trusting person in the galaxy, Blake. Or the most foolhardy. I'm not sure which."

"Thanks for the compliment."

Avon scowled, ignoring both the comment and the proffered jug. "One of us has to be sober when _Liberator_ returns."

Blake tilted the jug again, then wiped the heavy dark liquid from his lips with the back of his hand and settled into a listening posture. "You're elected. Go on. What was so special about Anna Grant?"

The leaping flames masked Avon's expression and his voice was hard, as he answered.

"Her bank account."

***

Liam Tynus walked into the computer centre office with a file of printouts under his arm and an expression of cunning on his face.

"Have you seen this, Kerr?"

The other occupant of the room did not bother look up from his work. His fingers continued to move with practiced ease over the touch-sensitive keys of the programming console set flush into the desk top. His dark eyes flicked from the VDU readout to his notes in total absorption. Tynus was forced to repeat his query. The response was not very encouraging.

"More of your prying, Tynus?"

"Ah, but this time it's paid off. Take a look." Without waiting for an answer he opened the file and spread its contents over the desk. Kerr Avon sat back, resigned to waiting until his companion had completed his disruption of the morning's work. When the file was empty Avon leaned over to inspect the papers. It took him only a few minutes to spot the thing which had so excited Tynus.

"One name, two credit accounts - and only one of them under security lock. This system must have been set up by a blind mutoid."

Tynus smiled slyly. "You see what it means to us?"

"A lot of unnecessary work." Avon snapped. Then, in the too-long silence which followed he looked up, saw his colleague's unmistakably voracious expression, and read there the gleanings of an idea. An idea that coalesced in his own mind.

"Fraud? You're thinking that you... that we... could use this information to tap into that account?"

Tynus smiled. "That's only half of it. Look at the registration address. That's right in the middle of the red light quarter. You don't need an FSA degree to guess what this Grant woman does to earn her credits. And you're working on the Federation Council personnel files. If money from certain highly placed officials was to find its way into an account registered at that address...."

Avon completed the thought for him. This was something more than fraud. It was blackmail, and the victims would never dare to query publicly the loss from their own accounts. Questions might be asked in high - and awkward - places. He flicked through the printouts, checking Tynus' figures with his own calculations At length, reluctantly, he nodded.

"The idea is certainly. . . attractive The programming won't present any problems."

Tynus looked up sharply. There had been an edge to the comment which implied that there would be problems.

"What will?"

"The Grant woman. She will have to be told that one of her accounts has been closed."

The security programmer grinned wolfishly. "I'll pay her a visit One of us ought to take a look at the goods before we set up the sale."

"The whole point of the operation," Avon observed, "is that no one gets to handle the goods."

Tynus shrugged. "Every job should have its perks. Even the illegal ones. Especially the illegal ones." He shuffled the printout back into the file and snapped over the seal. The sly grin had not left his face. "Of course, you realise what this makes us, don' t you, Kerr?"

Avon met his eyes levelly. He was not amused. "If we keep our heads, Tynus, it is going to make us very, very rich."

***

"Go on." Blake's eyes flickered open and Avon, who had paused in his narrative in the belief that the other man had fallen asleep, searched for the thread of his thoughts. Blake prompted him.

"Did it make you rich?"

The other man's face was impassive. "It made 'Anna Grant' the richest whore in history. If she had really been earning the credits we creamed out of the expense accounts of every Federation official who used the facilities of Levin City Spaceport her reputation and stamina would have had to rival those of Cleopatra, Mata Hari and Esme Telmarrik combined."

"Not bad," observed Blake, "for a 'ten-credit touch'."

"Closer to ten thousand credits." Avon leaned forward, enthusiasm clear on his features. "It was a beautiful piece of programming. A work of art. I didn't have to touch it once we'd set the system up. Even if the Federation officials had checked their own accounts they wouldn't have dared to take the case to the Security Forces. Not with that address on the account We had human nature on our side. And we would have been home-free if Tynus hadn't been so greedy." He met Blake's still sleepy eyes "You know, he used much the same words."

***

Tynus dropped the quarter's statement on Avon's desk and waited for the reaction. When he received none he tried prompting.  
"Not bad going for a ten-credit whore."

Avon nodded absently. "Good enough. You'd better close the account in the morning."

"What!"

That exclamation drew a reaction. Avon looked up, his expression hard.

"Close the account. Our job here has finished. This is the only thing left to clear up. I'll wipe the data banks before we leave."

Tynus gaped. "You can't be serious, Kerr. Just because we're leaving there's no reason why the program shouldn't run. There's a fortune in this - and no risks. The whole thing's under a security lock. As long as we have the key-code we can tap into that account from any terminal in the Federation banking system."

"It is too big a risk."

"Where's the risk?" Tynus controlled his anger with an effort, aware from bitter experience that it was next to impossible to win in a logical argument with Avon. And this occasion was going to be no different. The cold gaze met his.

"As long as we are here we can keep an eye in the situation in Levin City. After we leave anything might happen. A. sudden shift of power in the political section, a change in the banking system, a fault in the computers, some lunatic bunch of rebels taking over. Anna Grant may change her address, or her profession. She might even drop dead. We wouldn't know - until it was too late."

Tynus shrugged. "All right. Take your cut and get out now. I'll risk keeping the account open."

"It is my risk too, Tynus." There was a dangerous edge to his voice which should have made Tynus' blood run cold. "I set up the program. If anything goes wrong it can be traced to me. I am not going to put my head on the block because you want a few hundred more credits."

There was a long silence. Avon turned back to his work, but his partner, fox cunning, was not going to give up easily. His hand came down on the computer key board. The plastic rattled.

"Wait. If we could find someone to keep an eye on the situation here would that persuade you?"

"Who could we trust?" Avon was frankly sceptical. Tynus smiled.

"Anna Grant."

"What!"

"She has a vested interest in keeping quiet about it. And if we cut her in..."

"No." Avon's denial brooked no argument, but Tynus missed the finality of the word.

"But Kerr..."

It was no use. Casually Avon swept his hand from the keyboard and activated the terminal. He was using every trick of self-control which he had ever learned, and he was confident that there was nothing which Tynus could do to persuade him to keep the account open. He did not even bother to look up at his partner as he ran through the trial erase program.

"Do you realise what you are suggesting, Tynus? A three-way split with some back- street slut who hadn't the intelligence to realise that she'd been running two credit accounts for the last five years."

"She's not stupid, Kerr. If I put it to her properly I know she'd..." He broke off, aware that he had given too much away. Avon was out of his seat, his fists clenched.

"You crazy bastard! You've been seeing her."

Tynus backed away defensively. If it came to a fight Avon had the advantage of height and weight. He spoke rapidly, desperately seeking a way out. "I...I had to. I mean... you know... I had to explain, right at the beginning..." His voice trailed off. Almost apologetically he added, "And I never paid. . ."

"Maybe it would have been better if you had! At least I would be making some profit from your stupidity. You didn't give her your name, I suppose?"

It was heavy sarcasm. Avon did not expect an answer. In particular he did not expect the answer which he received.

"No. I gave her yours."

"Mine!?" There was cold murder in Avon's eyes. Murder, contempt, and a grudging admiration. "Liam Tynus, you never had any intention of closing that account, did you? You've been setting up a double blackmail."

"I've been taking your advice, Kerr. Hedging my bets. I say we leave the 'Anna' account on the memory banks. Otherwise..."

"Otherwise?" Avon was curious. If Tynus was playing a double blackmail he was doing it the hard way. In his position Avon would have killed both his partner and the girl. With an efficient cover-up it would be possible to keep the account running indefinitely - until, as he had already pointed out, something went wrong. But Tynus was far too cunning for his own good. There had to be a loophole in his plans; and Avon was very good at finding loopholes - it was his job.

***

The moons rose, a cluster of satellite worlds reflecting a sunlight which made the whole horizon shimmer. Moon-dawn on this unnamed world was far more spectacular than sunrise.

Avon threw another branch onto the dying fire and the black ash rose like a swarm of fireflies Beside him Blake settled himself more comfortably on the moss and uncorked another jug.

"Vila was right. Tynus wasn't exactly a good friend."

The leaping flames cast weird shadows which masked Avon's expression. "Avarice has been known to strain a lot of friendships. There was a great deal of money at stake."

"Not enough to tempt you."

"Enough." It was a flat statement. Blake wondered, not for the first time, whether the bounty on his head, and on the _Liberator_ would be enough to tempt Avon to betrayal. The ship was already two days late. But Avon's thoughts were firmly fixed on the events of eight years before. "Enough to tempt me But not nearly enough to make me run foolish risks I cleared the data banks that afternoon. After that the only access to the 'Anna account' was through the key-code unit."

Blake grinned. Obviously the years had not blunted Avon's natural caution when dealing with computers - or people.

"Tynus can't have been pleased."

"He wasn't When I got back to my apartment that evening Del Grant was waiting for me."

***

"Doctor Avon?"

Avon closed the door behind him, very carefully. The caution was dictated by the fact that a trigger-happy mercenary had a gun aimed, with professional accuracy, at his groin. He raised his hands. "My name is Avon. You have the advantage of me."

"Grant. Del Grant."

Avon's eyes met his levelly. There was no flicker of recognition in them.

"Should I know you?"

"That rather depends on what my sister has been saying. And whether you were sufficiently interested to listen, which I doubt."

Avon shrugged and lowered his hands. "As I have never, to my knowledge, met your sister it is unlikely that she has told me anything. Now, _what are you doing in my apartment_?"

Another man would have been cowed by the tone. Grant's fingers tightened on the release mechanism of the gun. He had faced a number of hard men, and some very good liars, in the course of his mercenary career. The reason that he was still alive was that he took no chances, not even with an unarmed man whose denial of his accusation held the ring of sincerity. The muzzle of the weapon followed Avon as he crossed the room to seat himself.

"You are going to tell me," said Grant, "everything."

"Everything?" The word dripped sarcasm. The implication of it threw Grant. Avon was not the sort of mindless thug whom he usually encountered when debt collecting for his sister. In fact, Avon was not Anna's type at all. He didn't look the type who had to pay for it.

For his part Avon was thinking rapidly. How much had Tynus told the girl? Was it worth his while to continue the deception, or...at least no one could touch the money without the key-code, and he alone held that.

"You admit that there is something to tell?"

Grant was jumping to conclusions. Avon decided to play along, but warily. "What has Anna told, you?"

"What you told her. That you've been using her name as a front for a fraud set up. And now that you're moving out you need her co-operation to maintain your cover."

"Arid you want to know what's in it for you?" This, Avon could understand. It was what he had. warned Tynus about. A four-way split appealed to him rather less than a three-way one. He was surprised by Grant's reaction. The mercenary shook his head.

"No. I just want the Federation Security forces off my back, And Anna's."

"What!' Avon fairly leapt from the chair, totally ignoring the gun. It was as well that Grant had also forgotten the weapon. He was taken aback by the other man's reaction. "Three times in the last week security men have kept appointments with Anna. They've been asking questions. Oh, it was very subtly done, but they were obviously checking up on your activities."

"You' re sure?"

A look of disgust crossed Grant's face. "I can smell them. Even when they're being subtle Federation techniques have a stink of their own."

Avon nodded slowly. This news put a different slant on things. He had arranged cutoffs when setting up the computer program, so that the tampering could not be traced back to its source, but Tynus' part of the operation had always carried the greatest risk. And Tynus had minimised that risk in the simplest way possible. He had used Avon's name. And Federation Security had been asking questions.

"What did she tell them?"

"Nothing." It was a bland statement. "She couldn't. You didn't tell her yourself until yesterday evening. But they'll be back. The next time they may not be so subtle. I'm going to make sure that they get their questions answered — by you."

Avon was not listening. He stood by the window, his dark eyes gazing unseeing into the middle distance. Below lay the panorama of Levin Spaceport, the blocks and domes and slender cylindrical towers rising from the dark canyons of the lower levels. In the distance, linked to the main City complex by chains of light, the flat landing decks and blast-pads glowed softly. A space shuttle was banking to make its approach run, Avon followed its curving flightpath without really seeing the ship. Tomorrow he would be aboard one of those shuttles, leaving Levin, and the Grants, and the Federation hunters to sort out their own problems. If Del Grant let him leave this room alive. Tynus had not covered all the angles. Or had he? Avon turned.

"I will be leaving here tomorrow, If I were to take your sister with me I could guarantee that the Federation would not find her."

"You'd never get her out of the spaceport. They'll have a tail on her."

"I understood that you were an expert in dealing with unwelcome personnel. If she comes here, alone, I will get her out of the city."

Grant holstered his gun and nodded. "You have twenty four hours Standard, Doctor Avon, If anything happens to Anna, if she is not on that shuttle when it leaves, I will find you. And next time I won't listen to any explanations before I hit the trigger."

Grant left. The door had hardly closed before Avon activated the phone-screen and tapped in Tynus' number. The security technician looked startled when he saw the face of his caller.

"Kerr I thought..."

"You thought that Del Grant would be disposing of my corpse by now. I'm sorry to disappoint you, Tynus. Apparently you overestimated Grant's abilities."

"Or underestimated yours. What do you want, Kerr?" There was apprehension in the question. Avon smiled.

"Oh not your blood, Tynus. Your escape route."

The face on the screen registered puzzlement. Avon was not fooled by it. He knew Tynus far too well. Carefully he explained. "You would not have set Grant onto me without making sure that there was no way of tracing the orders back to you. The best way of ensuring your safety was to leave this planet. Quickly. I think you owe me something, Tynus. The details of that escape route would be adequate payment."

"I..."

"Now, Tynus."

Tynus' eyes flicked nervously across the screen. It was the look of a trapped animal. This was one situation which he had not anticipated. Sensibly he decided to tell the truth. "I've booked passage with 'Interworid'. They have a cruiser leaving at 01:85, local time. There's a refuelling stopover on Aguir which connects with the regular freighter route."

Avon nodded. Most of the space traffic in this system was routed through Aguir and its satellite stations. Once there it would be easy to pick up transport, and to shake off any pursuit. There was just one problem.

"I'll need a visa. An identity to get me safely away from here."

Tynus nodded. "I'd already arranged that for myself. There's a dealer In the Rylan trade area who should be able to fix you one." He gave the address and Avon made a note of it. The Rylan area was on the other side of the city. Tynus had obviously put his work with the Federation personnel and security files to good use. He probably knew more about the criminal underworld of Levin City than anyone else. Avon looked up, aware that Tynus had not cut the transmission. Then he remembered why.

"All right. You better pack and join me here. We go together, Tynus. Remember, I still have the key—code to the account."

Tynus sounded bitter. "As if I could forget."

***

"I thought that Visa was for Anna." Blake's mind, even after three jugs of halva brew, was still sharp enough to pick up discrepancies in the narrative. Avon sighed.

"You're a romantic, Blake, like Grant. I'm not responsible for the way in which you interpret my statements."

Blake laughed. "You certainly let Grant jump to conclusions But you never lied to him. So what about those visas?"

Avon conceded the point. Sometimes Blake's uncanny insight unnerved him. The question about the visas had. caught him off guard, but there was no reason to conceal the truth. "Two are as easy to forge as one. I called the dealer and arranged to pick them up personally. That was a mistake. Tynus made a call too. When I got to Rylan the dealer was waiting for me. With a gun."

"Tynus didn't give up easily."

"No," said Avon, ruefully, "he did not."

***

An hour later Tynus entered Avon's apartment. He was not waiting for Avon. There was no point. The orders which he had given the dealer had been quite specific. By now Avon would be dead. Anna and Del Grant were being hunted by the Federation security units and all that remained for Tynus to do was to find the computer key-code to the 'Anna' account and get out of the city. Finding the key was proving much more difficult than he had anticipated. It had to be here somewhere. There was no reason why Avon should have taken it with him.

Tynus was turning out the cupboards in the bedroom when he heard the outer door open. He froze. Light, quick footsteps beat a tattoo on the inlaid floor panels. He recognised the tread as that of a woman. _The_ woman.

The footsteps came to a halt at the threshold of the living area. Their owner was obviously surveying the wreckage. If Tynus could have looked into those grey eyes now he would have seen nothing of tenderness in them. Her mobile lips twisted in a smile that was not inviting.

"He's skipped! The dirty, double-crossing little zlaat He's cleared the damn account and left!" The words were bitter with self-accusation. "I'd never have thought an Alpha had it in him!"

"I didn't realise you had such a low opinion of us, Anna." Tynus stepped into the doorway. It was a mistake. The woman turned. There was a flurry of movement, too fast for the eye to follow, and he saw that she held a gun in her hand It was aimed, steadily, at his heart. Anna had obviously been taking lessons from her brother. Tynus spread his hands in submission.

"My partner was here earlier. He had the key-code to the account. He's the one who's double-crossed us, Anna."

"And if I'd. been au hour later, Liam, you would have double-crossed me." Anna Grant, at least, was under no illusions about Tynus' honesty.

"I didn't expect you to come here at all." Tynus was puzzled. "We'd arranged to meet at the spaceport..." he paused. Anna's expression was ugly, that of a spaceport slut cheated out of ten thousand credits. She reversed the gun in her hand, moving the setting from 'stun' to 'kill'.

"Del was here earlier," she explained. "He met your _honest_` partner. He arranged to meet me here later. And Del swore that that damned arrogant bastard would give his life for mine." She rammed the gun into her belt and made for the door. "I may just hold him to that!"

She left.

Tynus scrambled after her.

"Anna! Don't be a fool! You'll never find him. And you don't know what he's told Security. You could have every guard in the city out looking for you."

"And me," he added silently, as the doors at the end of the corridor glided smoothly shut behind her.

***

"Five hundred each."

Avon dropped a thousand units on the table and reached across to take the visas. The dealer's hand chopped down with a thud which jarred the table and snatched them up.

"Ten thousand" The dim light caught his contact lenses, eerily blanking the shifty eyes. Avon's stare was as impassive.

"For ten thousand I could buy a ship. Give me one good reason why I should pay ten times as much as we agreed."

"Honest men don't buy visas to get them out of this city in a hurry. And the dishonest ones my pay price." The man grinned, showing yellow, chipped dentures, "The Federation would pay me as much, perhaps more, for the information that you need those visas."

"The Federation? Or Liam Tynus?"

The flare of the radiation backfire from the heavy, obsolete paragun seemed to fill the room with all the force of a thunderclap. For a moment the blinding light and the sound of the shot blotted out all other sensations. Then Avon felt himself falling. Although everything had happened far too fast for coherent thought to have been guiding the actions of either man, now time slowed He seemed to be drifting downwards, spinning through layers of gossamer with the slow, lazy glide of a falling autumn leaf. The shock, as he hit the angle of wall and floor, was all the more intense for its dreamlike prelude. Logic told Avon that the dealer had been fast, that only a fraction of a second had passed before his own weapon slid free of its wrist- sheath and his shock numbed fingers activated the single charge which drilled a stiletto of bloody light through the closing darkness. The use of the weapon demanded accuracy. He knew that the single shot had failed to find its mark when the paragun flared again. This time he felt the hit. Fire seared across his ribs, spinning him into the path of the beam. Somewhere, a long way away, someone was screaming. Avon's fingers closed convulsively on the trigger of the laser-blade, although he knew that the action was futile; the power unit was exhausted. Even as he fired the light died. The long scream broke off abruptly, but Avon did not hear its ending. A black hole opened in his consciousness A universe of pain was waiting for him although the only sensation which he felt as he slid into oblivion was the fading heat of the useless laser-blade in his hand.

***

Anna slipped on the blood. The close room reeked of it. She gagged on the stench and bile rose in her throat. The sight of the two twisted bodies shattered her tenuous control over her physical reactions and she doubled over to be violently sick. Trembling she leaned against the door. She had come here to kill but, faced with the aftermath of violent death, the emotional control which was so necessary in her profession had snapped. It took her almost twenty minutes to still her ragged breathing and quell the heaving of a stomach whose contents were now mixed with the blood and filth on the floor.

So much blood...

With a final wretch she stumbled across the room - and tripped over the out-thrust legs of the dealer's body. Swiftly she averted her eyes The man had shared her bed, as payment for the kind of deal which Avon had made. Well, he wouldn't need the visas now. Or the stack of credits with which he had been paid. She scooped money and documents from the table and turned to leave. Her hand was on the door handle when she remembered something else. The other body. It had to be Liam's partner. There was a chance that he had the missing computer key-code unit on him. It took an effort of will to turn back, but the thought of all that money... With a grimace of disgust she knelt to roll the body over. Her arms were red to the elbows before she found what she sought. The gruesome task had inured her to the stench of the room. With a final contemptuous glance around the charnel house, Anna Grant dropped the key to fifty thousand credits into her bag and left for the spaceport.

***

It was the draft from the swinging door which brought Avon back up through the red layers of pain and suffocation to the nauseous threshold of life.

With the return of consciousness came memory. The visas. The gunfight. And Liam Tynus. He had come here expecting trouble, and had walked straight into it. The next time he would not entrust his life to a weapon as unreliable as the laser-blade. The next time...

A hand moved from his shoulder to his face. His eyes snapped open before the probing fingers could pull back the lids. The effect of the movement on the man who stood over him was electric. The hand was snatched away as though the touch burned. Avon scarcely noticed. The sudden light had momentarily blinded him. But he recognised the voice of the intruder into his pain-filled world.

"Kerr, you're alive!"

Evidently. The word formed in his mind but his tongue refused to give it voice. Even the attempt to speak sent a wash of agony through him. The temptation to yield to it, to let the darkness wipe out the pain which stabbed him with every breath, almost overrode his common sense. He clung to consciousness with a tenacity born of fear. Tynus leaned over him, his pale eyes hard and dangerous.

"The key-code unit, Kerr. It's not in your apartment, so where?"

"Not... here..." The effort was too much even to add inflection to the words. Cracked ribs and punctured lung protested as Avon moved. New blood poured from the ragged wound in his side. Tynus swore as his partner slid back into unconsciousness.

"Not here...?" It was tantalising. The key was not in the apartment. A quick search had shown that Avon was not carrying it on him. Therefore he must have hidden it somewhere. The only way that Tynus could find out where was from the dying man at his feet.

Fifty thousand credits. Even a half share was better than nothing. And if Avon died. now he wouldn't even get that. Battening down futile fury Tynus knelt in the blood and muck and began to clean the caked filth from Avon's wounds.

***

It took two weeks.

Tynus had bribed medics, forged papers and rigged computer records in order to get the best available medical treatment for Avon. It had been a nerve racking fortnight, not least because the Federation Security corps had finally dragged the 'Anna' account out into the open and were making no secret of the fact that anyone suspected of being involved in the fraud could expect no mercy. Anna herself appeared to have vanished from the face of the planet. It was widely supposed that one of the security units had picked her up after her abortive attempt to find Avon. Certainly her brother believed that she had died under interrogation and he had moved quickly to avoid a similar fate. Tynus was living on a knife-edge. His cover-up had, of necessity, been makeshift. He was surprised that he and Avon had escaped detection for as long as they had. Their time was rapidly running out. It would not be long before the Federation experts cracked the codes themselves and found out where the missing credits had been hoarded.

Avon's recovery had been little short of miraculous The medics had worked for three days to drag him back from the brink of death. On any other world it might not have been possible, but Levin was both a military and civilian, spaceport and it maintained a medical unit with transplant and pharmaceutical facilities which were among the best in the Federated worlds. Tynus had certainly paid enough for them. That thought was uppermost in his mind when he paid his partner a visit.

Avon was sitting in a hard, high-backed chair when Tynus entered. He made to rise and thought better of it as a dull pain throbbed to life in his side. Although the heavy, immobilising dressings had been replaced only that morning with a covering of sprayed anaesthetic plas-gel Avon had been cautioned to take things easy. He should not really have left his bed, but he had no intention of allowing Tynus to realise just how weak he still was. Tynus' first words convinced him that he had been right in his instinct.

"How are you feeling?" Tynus regretted the banal question even as it left his lips.

Avon looked at him sourly. "Well enough to handle a gun."

The other man sat down on the edge of the bed and spread his hands in a placatory gesture. "If I'd wanted to kill you, Avon, would I have arranged all this?"

"You didn't do it out of gratitude, Tynus. I've had two weeks to wonder why. Are you going to tell me?"

Tynus was taken aback. Avon had an acute mind. He should have deduced what Tynus wanted He pulled himself together and leaned forward confidentially. "You still have the key-code to the 'Anna' account. After all we've been through you can hardly have forgotten."

"The key..." Avon sounded surprised. He had not forgotten. It was the first thing he had checked for when he had regained consciousness and, when he found that it was missing, he had assumed that Tynus had taken it. Now he taxed his partner with the theft. The man's air of startled innocence at once disabused him of that notion. Tynus rose to his feet.

"Anna Grant. The little bitch. She came looking for you - with a gun Obviously she found you before I did. She took the visas, the dealer's credits, and the key!"

"What happened to her?" Avon was sharp. Tynus shrugged.

"The reports say that the Federation took her for questioning. But if she had those visas..."

Avon threw back his head and laughed, ignoring the pain which lanced through his chest. "She played us beautifully, Tynus. Your ignorant little ten-credit whore took us for nearly fifty thousand credits!"

"I'm glad you find it amusing." Tynus turned away in disgust. Avon's calm voice stopped him as he laid. a hand on the door-plate.

"Tynus?"

He turned. The dark eyes met his and held them. "This one fell into our laps, Tynus. The next time we will have to be more careful."

"The next time?"

And now there was no laughter in Avon's eyes "The Federation is setting up a new bank terminal on Maynard IV. I'm sure that they could use a systems analyst - and a good security programmer. There is a shuttle leaving tomorrow."

Tynus grinned as he opened the door. "And the temperate zone of Maynard is supposed to be a very good. place for convalescence... partner."

***

The fire was burning low again, but they scarcely needed its light. The moons were bright, fifteen points of cold silver light moving against the paler ring of their smaller, denser sister satellites. Avon watched them for a moment and then reached across for the water jug to slake his thirst.

"And that's it, Blake. If Del Grant's sister meant anything to me it was because she was the only person who has ever succeeded in cheating me. I have always admired her for that."

There was no reply. Avon looked down and realised that the four jugs of halva brew had taken their toll.

Blake was fast asleep.

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> _Neither Love Nor Money_, popularly known from its first line as _Anna Grant Was a Ten Credit Touch_, was written in March 1979, shortly after _Countdown_ was first broadcast, and before it was 'jossed' by _Rumours of Death_. The story was submitted to the zine _Liberator_ but was never published there, and finally saw print in 1983 as part of the _The Big Boy's Book of 1001 Things to do in Zero Gravity with a Federation Handblaster_. This version was OCRed from that zine, and has not been altered (much as the author would wish to).


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